The RealBird iPod Touch Sweepstakes, which ran from Sept 13 through Sept 28, celebrated the new release of the iPhone / iPod Touch optimized version of the RealBird Listing Publisher service and gave RealBird members a chance to win an Apple iPod Touch by inviting fellow real estate professionals to join RealBird for free.

Thanks for all of you who participated. We are going to announce our next sweepstakes pretty soon, so keep sharing RealBird with your fellow real estate professionals using the built-in invitation tool. All prior and future invitations count in the upcoming sweepstakes as well.

Take your whole listing inventory on the road:Bookmark your RealBird RSS feed on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can flip through all of your featured listings, double tap the one to showcase and present details, unlimited photos, maps and directions. It's so smooth.

On the iPhone, your phone number is automatically converted to a hotlink. By tapping on it, iPhone users can call you directly from your listing presentation page. Smooth, again !

We have changed the sweepstakes drawing date of the free iPod Touch to Sept 28, to the same day when Apple will start selling the product.

If you are reading this on your iPhone, see for an example Patti Lyles's listings (RSS feed):

Home buyers can now see your featured listings on their Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch device with optimized presentation. You can also show your listings to prospective buyers or fellow agents on the road using the devices' built in web browsing capability. Stunning presentation on a stunning device.

We are giving away an Apple iPod Touch

We also started a sweepstakes, with an Apple iPod Touch as the prize. There is no purchase necessary. All you have to do is invite at least one colleague or real estate partner to join RealBird for free. Those of you who already invited people before, are automatically enrolled, but inviting more people increases your chance to win. Every invitation email counts as one distinct enrollment. No purchase is required from you or your invitees.

To enroll do the following (you must be a real estate professional to participate):

She used one of the unique features of the RealBird Listing Publisher, i.e. you can upload a large size background image for your listing to capture the attention of visitors and home buyers. Her take of a casual, sunny moment at the Pacific Ocean (looks like Ocean Beach in San Francisco) creates a perfect backdrop to her nearby listing and emphasizes the neighborhood characteristics and mood much better than any property image or description could.

Here are some other ideas you may want to try for your background image:

High resolution image of the subject property

Nature pictures, forest, mountains, the land

City scape, something characteristic of the location

Remember, the purpose of the background image is not necessarily to communicate a specific feature of the listing, but to deliver the mood, the style and the lifestyle the property represents.

Don't forget to send us an email with your listing (or add the link as a comment below), if you use this customization feature. I think this is a very powerful presentation utility and I would like to show other examples of nice listing presentations.